Message from Headteacher

It’s been a very short half-term of just four weeks, but we’ve certainly crammed in a lot! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for the family BBQ and book launch—it was lovely to see so many families enjoying the sunshine and celebrating together. I must say I was particularly impressed with Mrs Hill’s BBQing skills and also Mrs Howell’s Ice Cream making!

I’m so grateful to the staff who run an extra curricular activity in their own time – we are proud of how many clubs we have on offer. I have enjoyed running the parent-children Engineering Club this half-term! As someone who loved building things as a child, it’s been a joy to provide a space for children (and their grown-ups!) to explore that same passion through projects like catapults, lamps, and solar-powered cars.

Thanks to everyone who has managed to come along to support our Sports Days—it means so much to the children to have you there. A particular thanks to those of you who took part in a race or event!

I was especially proud of our girls’ football team in the last week of the half-term, who came third in a tournament involving all primary schools across the city! Our boys’ team also played brilliantly in their recent game against St. Gabriel’s Primary, winning 4-0.

Another highlight for me this half-term was meeting with the Junior Pupil Parliament Cabinet. They shared some fantastic ideas and plans their departments have for the final seven weeks of the year! They also reflected on a previous idea they had for us to provide picnic tables near the dining room so children can enjoy eating lunch outside—we were thrilled to make that happen using some of our fundraising money! Children in the Foundation Phase have also enjoyed using the new outdoor pay equipment we installed.

Can I take this opportunity to wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable half-term break with your families. I’ll be trying to fit in some exercise during my break, after enjoying the PTA’s new ice cream machine a little too much this term!

We’ve got lots to look forward to in the second half of the summer term, starting with our Healthy Living Day!

Enjoy reading the other updates below…

Mr L Mansfield – Headteacher

Return to School After Half Term – Healthy Living Day

All children return to school on Monday 2nd June after half term. Don’t forget it’s our Healthy Living Day! Throughout the day, children will rotate around a variety of fun and engaging activities, all aimed at promoting the importance of maintaining good health and overall wellbeing. We are thrilled to welcome several visitors, including County in the Community, Forces Fitness, Sports Cymru, Chartwells, and Angus O’Brien, the captain of Newport Gwent Dragons, who will all be joining us to make this day even more memorable. Junior children will take part in the activities in the morning, with the infants joining in during the afternoon. This will take place during the school day, and parents do not need to attend. As part of the day, we ask that children come to school wearing their P.E kits. We are looking forward to an action-packed day and are keeping our fingers. Nursery children will have their own Healthy Living Day in the nursery garden, so should still wear their PE kits to school

School Attendance

School attendance continues to be a key focus for the government, the Local Authority, and our school. Regular attendance is vital for children’s learning, well-being, and long-term success. We encourage all parents to ensure their children are in school as often as possible and to book holidays or appointments outside of term time whenever they can. If you’re ever unsure whether your child is too ill for school, the NHS provides helpful guidance here. We’ve also noticed that a number of children are regularly arriving late. Being on time is just as important as being present—punctuality helps children settle into the school day calmly and ensures they don’t miss valuable learning time. Thank you for your continued support in helping every child make the most of their education.

Important – School Phone Number Changing

We’re in the process of having a new telephone system installed. We’ve had some issues with our existing system. The new system will be better for parents calling in too. For example, if you call in and the office staff are on another call, it will hold you in the queue rather than just cutting you off. Unfortunately, the new system means our phone number will be changing. We will let you know the new number as soon as we switch over. Until then, you can still use our existing number, but we wanted to give you warning. We will, of course, update our school website contact information when it changes, too.

Family BBQ

A big thank you to everyone who came to our Family BBQ! We really enjoyed it and hope you did too! It was great to spend time with everyone. The PTA raised around £600 from the event which will go towards resources and experiences for our children. Thank you for your support!

Sports Days

A huge congratulations to all the children who took part in our recent Sports Days! We were so proud to see the enthusiasm, determination, and team spirit on display in every race and activity. Whether sprinting, jumping, or cheering on friends, every child gave their best effort and helped make the day a fantastic celebration of sport and school spirit.

We’d also like to extend a big thank you to all the parents and carers who came along to support—particularly those who joined in with the races!

We’re looking forward to the remaining Sports Days and keeping our fingers crossed for good weather!

Miss Sier’s Book Launch

Thank you to everyone who came to Miss Sier’s book launch at the beginning of this term. It was great to spend time chatting to everyone and hearing Miss Sier talk about the inspiration for her new book, ‘Magic, Mum and Me’. 

World Bee Day

We recently celebrated World Bee Day, a special time to recognise the vital role bees play in our environment. Our Eco Council would like to remind everyone how important it is to look after bees, as they help pollinate the plants that grow our food and flowers. Simple actions like planting bee-friendly flowers, avoiding harmful pesticides, and providing water sources can make a big difference. Let’s all do our part to help our buzzing friends thrive!

Keeping Learners Safe in Education – Safeguarding

Schools in Wales follow the Welsh Government’s Keeping Learners Safe guidance, which sets out the duties and expectations for safeguarding children in education. This guidance supports schools, local authorities, and governing bodies in creating safe environments where all learners can thrive. It outlines clear procedures for identifying and responding to concerns, ensuring that staff are trained and confident in their safeguarding responsibilities. Click the leaflet above for more information.

Updated Summer Reports Format

We’re pleased to share that we’ve updated our End of Year School Report format to make it more informative and easier for parents to understand. The new reports will include brief statements about the progress your child has made in each Area of Learning, along with an overarching summary for each area to give a clearer picture of overall development. We’ve also included a range of assessment data to support these summaries. In addition, the reports will feature highlights from Pupil Learning Review meetings—conversations between children and their teachers about their learning—and self-reflections written by the children themselves. Finally, we’ve improved the attendance summary section to give a more complete view of your child’s school year.

Sun Safety

As the weather gets warmer (hopefully!), it’s important for everyone to stay safe in the sun. Please make sure children come to school wearing sunscreen, a sun hat, and bring a refillable water bottle to stay hydrated throughout the day.

Welsh Government Personalised Assessments

Over the coming weeks, children in Years 2 to 6 will be completing the Welsh Government Online Personalised Assessments. These include three key areas: a Reading Assessment, a Procedural Numeracy Assessment, and a Reasoning Numeracy Assessment. These assessments are designed to support learning by identifying each child’s strengths and areas for development. At the end of the year, results will be available through each child’s Hwb account, allowing parents and carers to view feedback and progress reports. The personalised assessments are ‘adaptive’ which means that each learner will have a unique assessment. Questions are chosen based on the learner’s response to the previous questions; in Numeracy (Procedural) and Numeracy (Reasoning), if a learner answers a question correctly, they will get a harder question. If a learner cannot answer a question or answers incorrectly, they are given an easier question. In the Reading assessments, groups of questions are linked to a reading text – if a learner answers the group of questions correctly they will move on to a more challenging text and questions, but if they answer incorrectly they will receive an easier text and questions.

Welsh Government Consultation on School Dinners

The Welsh Government is currently running and online consultation to seek parents and children’s views about some changes they want to make to School Meals. You can read their proposals in this child-friendly leaflet and then take part in the consultation here. 

Online Suggestion Box

Thanks to those of you who submitted suggestions to improve our school in the last newsletter! The two suggestions we received were:

• Host a family BBQ
• Open up the school field in the summer break to let children meet up with each other to play. (We’re looking into this one. Obviously, we would need staff available and willing but will keep you posted if we can make something work!)

If you have any ideas of what we need to work on or improve as a school, please do let us know! If we adopt your idea, we’ll buy you a box of chocolates! You can use this link.

St Julian’s Primary’s Got Talent

If your child can play an instrument, sing, dance, tell a joke or do a magic trick… this is the event for them! Children wishing to take part will be invited to register after half term.

Reminder of our School Rules

At our school, we follow three simple but important rules: Be Ready, Be Respectful, and Be Safe. These core values guide everything we do and help create a positive and supportive learning environment. We used to have a long list of rules, but by simplifying them into these three key expectations, it’s become much easier for children to remember and follow them every day. Ask your children what our school rules are – I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you more about them!

Year 5&6 Summer Show Announced!

We’re excited to announce that Miss Shepherd, Miss Stewart, and Miss Vers have revealed this year’s school production will be Matilda! Some children have already received their parts and are buzzing with excitement as they prepare to begin rehearsals.

School Essentials Grant Information

If you’re in receipt of certain benefits, you may be eligible for the School Essentials grant. More information can be found here.

Online Office

Don’t forget that you can access our online office whenever you need, with searchable information, absence reporting forms and lots of other information too!

Helping Hands

Visit our Help at Home page for general ideas and tips for helping children with their learning at home.

Your child can access the online lessons we’ve created with key information linked to the learning themes in our school curriculum.

Contact our Family Support Worker for support with a range of things.

Browse our online parenting leaflets.

Class Dojo – Main Communication Platform

We want to remind all parents and carers that Class Dojo is our main communication tool for sharing important school updates and class news. Through the app, you can receive whole school announcements, as well as specific updates from your child’s class teacher. It’s a great way to stay informed about events, learning activities, and key reminders. We also use the online calendar which notifies parents of upcoming events. You can control the notification settings in the app to increase the number of reminders or reduce them. Please note that we don’t use the private messaging feature of the App, so don’t message us using that as we won’t see it.

If you haven’t already, please make sure you have the app and are connected to your child’s class.

Upcoming Events

*Please note the change of date for our Creative Festival. We have had to move it to Tuesday 24th June instead of Friday 27th June. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.

June

• Monday 2nd June – Healthy Living Day – Children will take part in a range of workshops on the school field relating to healthy living. All children should wear their PE kit today. Infant children will attend the workshops in the morning, Junior children will attend during the afternoon. Please make sure your child is wearing suncream. 
• Thursday 5th June – Year 5 Cracking Ideas Eco Festival – Year 5 children will be holding their Cracking Ideas stalls where they will sell their products to the rest of the junior school children. Junior children can bring up for £4 to school to buy items at the festival if they wish.
• Friday 6th June – 1:15 pm – Year 3 Sports Day 
• Monday 9th June – Year 4 visit to Cilfynydd – Y4OM & Y4KS
• Tuesday 10th June – Year 4 visit to Cilfynydd – Y4HN/LM
• Wednesday 11th June – Reception’s visit to Bristol Zoo Project
• Friday 13th June – 1:15 pm – Year 4 Sports Day 
• Monday 16th June – 1:15 pm – Year 5 Sports Day 
• Thursday 19th June – 5:30 pm – SJPS Has Got Talent – Children will be invited to audition and showcase their talent during the evening performance. More information to follow.
• Friday 20th June – 1:15 pm – Year 6 Sports Day
• Tuesday 24th June – Creative Festival – Parents will be invited to join us for all or part of the day. All classes will perform a song or dance on the school field. Infant classes will perform in the morning. Junior classes will perform in the afternoon. Food and drinks will be available from the PTA. Feel free to bring a rug or chairs to sit on. Children can bring money to spend at the PTA food stall if they wish.
• Monday 30th June – 18th July – Y4 swimming Course Begins – A separate letter will be sent with more information.
• Monday 30th June – 4:00 pm – New Reception parents meeting – Parents of children starting in Reception can come to hear about the school and find out who their child’s teacher is next year.

July

• Friday 4th July – Moving Up (Transition) day – Children will spend the day with their new teacher. 
• Tuesday 8th July – 4:00pm – New Nursery Parents Meeting – Parents of new nursery children can bring their child to see the nursery setting and get to meet the staff.
• Tuesday 8th & 9th July – 6pm – Year 5&6 Summer Concert Performances (Dress Rehearsal at 13:15 for Parents with Babies/Toddlers/Young Children – young children/toddlers/babies cannot attend the evening performance)
• Thursday 10th July – 2:30 pm for Rec-Y6 – Book’nic (Morning Nursery – 11:00 am / Afternoon Nursery – 2:45 pm) – Parents are invited to come to collect their child(ren) to sit on the school field for a picnic and to look at children’s workbooks to see the work they’ve done this year.
• Friday 11th – Sunday 13th July – Y6 to Llangrannog for the weekend.
• Wednesday 16th July – Graduation – 13:30 – 2 Adults of year six children are invited to join us 
• Thursday 17th July – 2:45 pm – Colour run – Children from Year 1-6 are invited to take part in the Colour Run on the school field from 2:45pm. More information will follow nearer the time. Another letter will follow.
• Friday 18th July – Last Day of term for Children. Non-uniform Day.
• Monday 21st July – Staff Training Day – School Closed to Pupils

Updates from Each Year Group